


What She Sees

by Queens_Lynn



Series: No Crystal Ball Here. [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Iron Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Clairvoyance, Clairvoyant Tony Stark, F/F, F/M, Female Tony Stark, Harry Hogan is different from Happy Hogan, Multi, OOC-ness, Peggy Carter is a BAMF, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark is great, Tony Stark-centric, WW2 AU, always a girl!Tony, slight - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-05
Updated: 2017-08-22
Packaged: 2018-12-11 15:12:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11716965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Queens_Lynn/pseuds/Queens_Lynn
Summary: In which Toni Stark is the clairvoyant sister of Howard Stark. Ignored and used in turn she channels her pain into helping the war effort and understanding what it is she can see.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, this is new (totally, nobody's ever seen a time travel AU before) but this idea totally took over my mind so I wrote it.  
> FOR ANYONE WHO HAS ALREADY READ THIS AND IS CONFUSED ABOUT THE AUTHOR, I CHANGED MY USERNAME SORRY!!

 

 

Antonia is born tiny, flailing limbs and a patch of black hair. Her eyes were never blue, she opened them and they were amber. The doctor takes a step back. Her mother holds her and Toni sees a boy standing in the corner, looking at her warmly.

Antonia's father doesn't care about her, he saw nothing when she was born, created her name from Howard's.

Antonia's mother doesn't care about her, Toni is sure she could have, had Toni been a bit more feminine and had not taught herself how to sew just to turn beautiful skirts into shorts or trousers, she still keeps some, but when she's running or learning how to cartwheel, skirts just are not useful.

Five years old and Toni knows things, things not even Howard knows (and her big brother knows everything). She sees things, mostly in her sleep, clippets of things that are, will be or could be changed and somehow, Toni can tell the difference. Many of them, she watches happen. She watches where a butterfly lands before it does, she knows what her father and Howard will make next. The next large piece of news to be brought through her home, she already knows.

She sees things that clearly aren't from her time, they're things that would have been and Toni doesn't know what to make of this information. She sees fire and she feels pain, right in the center of her sternum and she screams awake at night. Howard finds her sometimes, clutching at her chest and screaming about a blue light. There's a burning in her throat as she sees her next accomplishment. The world is seen and she hates herself for something that she hasn't done, not this time. But it was still her. Only half the time he comforts her, other times he's 'busy, Antonia, bring your drama somewhere else'. She needs his support though so when she gets it she's grateful.

Putting her head under water doesn't go well and her parents question her a lot, trying to give her baths as a child while she quickly takes over. She won't allow people to hand her things and she's sure there are reasons these things scare her so much and she's sure someday she'll know.

Seeing things that didn't or don't need to happen but she sees the alternatives as well and lots of the time, they're so much worse.

Languages are a gift to Toni, she's confined to the house and so the books Howard brings her but she can speak differently, nobody seems to understand her until Howard learns French then he understands some of it. She can speak what she knows are Italian, French, German, Mandarin, Japanese and Dari. She rants long and loud about what she's seeing in these languages but only when she's alone, her father won't allow it.

Someone taunts 'a warm light for all of mankind to share' and it's solid. How are there solid things in a fuzzy vision? She asks her brother this, and he doesn't understand what she's asking. It shatters her world view, if Howard doesn't know, that means something is wrong.

_She sees Howard sometimes too, and from the perspective she is shown he is always taller, grim and hard. He searches for something that is unreachable, at that point anyway and Toni, all she wants is for him to see her. He studies maps and she sneaks into his workshop to steal parts for a robot._

_This is how the other story begins._

She tries to tell Howard one day, the older boy working on something that neither males will let her near ("it's not in your realm of understanding, Antonia") but she knows how it works anyway. She tells her brother (the one that cares) that she can see things, she knows things more advanced than what he's making. She tells him the things that are bold always come true, and he laughs and tells her she's only dreaming.

"I'm not dreaming, I'm being shown," she will keep telling him until he believes her. She is shown red and gold and clings to it.

She stands as tall as she can and tries to behave while Howard's gone, the education she wants rather than what she learns herself. she hides from her father in Howard's workshop and completes any bits she can. She laughs and uses the brightest pen she can find to correct her brother's math.

Everyone thinks her weak, small, yet she squirms her way into the workshop Howard sets up and is just as useful. She fights tooth and nail for her brother's respect and manages, almost. Howard loves her, but in his mind she will never be an equal, impressive and useful? He only uses her.

"Are you okay?" she is asked, to which the reply is, 'always'.

Yet he will always side with their father, so when at thirteen, he slaps her for being disobedient, Howard does nothing. It isn't the first time it's happened but it was the first that Howard saw. When Toni's leg is broken at fifteen because some guy grabbed hold of her skirt and she had to beat him off (she doesn't know how she knew how to take him down but she did), Howard gets her to the hospital but doesn't defend her when their father finds out about the use of his money.

At sixteen she sees a blurry vision of Howard being hit by a car, the next day she drags him away from it. There's a tingle in the back of her head and she relishes in it, she could change what is uncertain. She is more powerful than all her family, she laughs as she lays on the floor, long after Howard has left because if she didn't, she'd cry.

Picking locks becomes a hobby whenever she can get out of the house, once she has the hang of it, it's a rather mindless task that she can think while doing it and besides she never goes anywhere that she'd get caught. It's something she can do with hair pins or wire, thin pieces of metal so she doesn't have to work with Howard.

With eighteen comes Obadiah, who Howard claims is a stand-up guy, and their marriage. Toni fights tooth and nail against it, before then she had never dared scream at her father like she did then. The ceremony is quiet, the Stark's not a big enough deal to know yet, even with Howard's business getting bigger.

Later that day when Obadiah drags her skirt up her legs, not at all gentle and smiling like he's winning something, images flash behind her eyes. Her barely older, punching him square in the jaw, her bringing him down even as he holds her arm tight behind her back, a doctor telling her she's infertile, her looking at his hand holding divorce papers. She laughs, all the visions were solid. When he rips her corset away from her, she's still laughing, wild and feral. She digs painted nails down his arms and keeps laughing as he handles her harsher, hands bruising, thrusts unyielding. And the next morning when she spills coffee on his chest? She's laughing then too.

Settling into days of Obadiah demanding food or something cleaned is easy. She only bothers to apply her red lipstick, eyelashes dark enough and she wears trousers (for irritable purposes).

She says no the next time, they share a bed but Obadiah spends most of his time with Howard and Toni's trying to create everything she knows she can.

She uses references she understands but doesn't know what they mean, words slip out that she's sure didn't exist.

And she can feel something coming, she catches flashes of blood, screaming, there's a blonde man, a train. She can feel her path being changed. Toni goes to find someone to learn. She finds a guy, name of Harold, who would be just her type if she wasn't forced into this shit by a man she hates regularly. He doesn't care she's a woman, he'll take what little money she can give him as his boxing ring goes down. She finds she knows this stuff. It's one of the instincts, she ducks and elbows him in the face. She calls it 'mixed martial arts', he calls it 'dirty boxing' and they laugh.

"Where'd you learn before this?" He asks her.

"I didn't, I just know things," she declares, she gets a funny look but not an outright dismissal. Close enough. She starts to tell him what she knows and when he sees some, he starts to believe.

"Most people won't, they'll think you're crazy. Or worse, they'll want to test it. We'll keep it quiet, yeah?" He asks.

"Sometimes I can't help the way I speak but I know," she hugs him. She has a thing with nicknames, she calls him Harry most of the time but then it's sweetie, honey-bear, snuggle-muffin. Harry doesn't mind, he just laughs at each new one.

"You can do better than that, Honey," she jests, getting punched for her troubles. 

As Obadiah pushes again and again she grows numb to it. She can make dinner every couple of days and deal for a while. It's when he drags her bodily into the house, she punches him in the face. He goes down, she goes out.

"Not as strong as you want to be, huh?" she taunts him.

Howard builds weapons and tech for his company to flourish. He buys her a car and a tool box for her 19th birthday, smiling sadly as he looks at the mess that is her home with Stane. She doesn't know why he bothered really, this is the first time she's heard from him since the wedding, not that she contacted him either.

"How's it going here?" he asks, looking around the room she commandeered for herself, made a lock Obadiah can't break and everything.

"Great," she smiles bitterly, harshly. Her brother hugs her and she shakes her head into his shoulder, fiddling with her skirt rather than putting her arms around him.

"Are you alright?"

"Always,"

Obadiah fights more and uses his weight to pin her anywhere, half the time she gets out of it, others, not so much. She hates it and she hates the broken clothes. She craves something better.

_The story continues like this, Toni knows she's alone. There's nobody for her here, maybe if she was better Pepper would stay closer to her and she knows if it didn't make her physically ill to think about sleeping with the man, she'd love to end up with Rhodey. There's just not a person strong and caring enough to put up with her here. She finds other ways to build a family (even if nobody else knows)._

_There's a robot and he's solid in this part. He's bold while the rest of the picture flickers._

_So she drinks and fucks and people hate to love her and love to hate her but she has her metal babies and Rhodey when she needs them and so what the world likes to point out that what she does is wrong. They act like it's a crime to enjoy sex and call her every name in the book. They call her the Merchant of Death and love to point out what weapons do, yet she knows if she ever stopped, they'd bash her for that too. Rhodey tells her he'll be her support beam and JARVIS always wakes her up for board meetings so at first, this is enough. After all, she didn't have anything in the beginning._

Toni screams and Obadiah pushes her out of their bed, telling her to do something rather than be an over-dramatic bitch.

He brings her to a doctor to find out why she isn't pregnant, desperate for a way to fit her into the submissive w=house wife role.

"Maybe it'll make you more like a woman," he snarls, "you need to be put in place and I need a legacy," she laughs again. The doctors don't tell her anything she didn't already know.

~

The war has started.

"I'm going to fight," She informs her father, he scoffs but doesn't stop her, he doesn't know what she could do. Howard only sighs as she packs and leaves in the car she upgraded. She doesn't tell Obadiah, she mails him divorce papers so he can get them authorized.

She fights her way into the SSR and spends a year proving her worth, she knows it's what she needs to do. there's a messy apartment in Brooklyn that she stores her tech and belongings in, she's rarely there.

She lies about her age and signs up as Antonia Ellen Carbonell, the name rings like a bell in her mind, this would have been what she wanted.

"Why should we recruit you?" they ask, "you're just a girl," they scoff.

"You need me," she insists, "this war isn't just going to go away," and when she takes down all of the other recruits easily in training, she tells them she,s like no woman they've ever seen. Colonel Phillips likes her, when she manages to meet him and she gets where she wants to be quickly.

She punches anyone who mocks her and learns to be sharp toothed and quick witted. Always with the snark, it just grows into something a little more violent, a little more well adapted. A little more trained. She's around more people now than she ever was. They put her with menial tasks.

"Little girl," a soldier laughs, she's at a training ground in England, recruitment or something. She punches him in the jaw, grabs his gentiles and tugs, he falls like a sack of bricks.

"Remember this," she sneers into his ears, "because with an attitude like that, this will have be the only time a woman will touch you in your special place," She steps back and surveys the other, "anything else to say?" she asks.

"What the fuck?" someone gapes, something, knowledge flicks in the back of her mind. She smirks, she knows she looks unassuming, short and the muscle mass she has hidden under a coat. The only things outstanding are her deep amber eyes.

The Colonel leaves her to it, he knows she won't stop abusing sexist newbies.

Another agent strolls over, also female, which is surprising, really, there are so few these days. (These days? What other days were there? She questions herself).

"Dirty, but effective," she replies to the woman's raised eyebrow.

"Margret Carter," she holds out a hand to shake.

She sasses her way into the agent's heart. They even take the trip back to America together.

"Why are you here?" Peggy asks her, and Toni knows she's talking about Toni's love for mechanics, electronics and her intellect but she still answers honestly.

"They wouldn't let me join the army," she shrugs. Toni needed to fight and she knows at another time, she probably did it differently, but this is what she has now.

There's a reputation for being lucky, always missing bullets or hits that would of broken bones. Some say it's ridiculous, others say she must be extremely talented. Toni just knows where the bad things, the avoidable things will be and she skips around them, pulling whoever's with her as well.

On her second leave she comes back to her flat of scrap wires and pieces of metal to four letters from Harry, her heart goes cold.

The first is fine, he tells her he's met a girl, he says she's brilliant and beautiful and works in a factory. He says he's serious and he's getting by without his ring. Toni's pleased.

The second letter tells her he's been drafted, he's scared and he left his dame he tells her he'll be in touch. And he is clearly, the fourth tells her his regiment and Toni gets started. She asks her superior what his stance on new recruits is, he tells her that mostly, they are trained in SSR camps, not normal army bases, she tells him she's going to get Harry in anyway.

She marches into the highest officer's office with Peggy and random agent #n at her back. They take Harry easily.

"Toni!" He greets.

"Hey, pumpkin. Sorry we're meeting like this, how's Manhattan holding up?" She laughs.

"Great, so you got my letters?" He walks her on the shoulder.

"Eventually," she punches him back, "your dame, she pretty?" She asks.

"Yeah," he states, uncertain.

"I've got a plan. So far, I've been able to avoid Howard," Peggy's head snaps up, New information, "but I can get your girl safely under his employ if needed," she tells her friend.

"That'd be great," he says, relieved. Toni writes a letter to Howard, saying this girl is important to a friend of hers. She won't talk to him again, he never bothered. She says he's never met the friend as he never cared. Protect her, she says and encloses a picture. Happy writes a letter to the girl (Rachael) and tells her to bring Toni's letter and demand to see Howard Stark.

Toni never mentions Howard's last name and Peggy quickly stops giving her curious glances.

She has Harry set up as her direct partner (he treats her like his boss) and so he will come everywhere with her, officially unlike how she and Peggy seem to end up together.

Finding Edwin Jarvis so quickly after that was incredible, a steady soldier in the SSR and he pulls her out of the way of a stray bullet.

"You're great," she tells him and adds him to her list. She doesn't tell him about the knowledge like she tells Happy but as she meets him things are very much the same. His accent soothes her.

"Ma'am, we should get going," he always tells her as she assess damage after fights and she tries to gym him to stop but he's polite and she's a rank above him. She tries nick names but they just make him uncomfortable, she uses shortened names then.

"Oh my gods, you're so British, Ed!" she cackles. He talks about his wife back home, Ana and Toni coos over it as much as she can without feeling too physically ill about being overly female.

They fight for their country as a team and the SSR are fine with it, more often than not Peggy and whoever she's working with join them on missions but sometimes it's just the three of them. Toni's good with intelligence, Harry's good with fighting, brute strength and Edwin is a great, well rounded soldier. They train together and take moves from anyone who'll teach them, nobody fights like Toni does and she tries her best to teach her boys how to as well.

When she's in particularly bad or petty moods she yells in various languages or mutters under her breath as passers by think she's crazy.

_Later in the story there's a pain in her chest and it seems the only thing she's getting out of trying to turn it all around are dark black lines of poison crawling outwards from her heart. People say that the light looks like hope and Toni gets drunk on six shots of whatever someone gives her and destroys her house. She swears she had greater alcohol resistance but the poison must be dragging her faster than she realized. Fuck it, she wants to be remembered and even if people label her as crazy, unfit to be around people, it won't last forever (it will)._

_She has the stark expo and the arc, her father will be known for destruction and while the Merchant of Death haunts her she doesn't care, there's happy and Rhodey who will at least remember who she really is. Pepper might and although she's trying her best to push them away, only so it won't hurt them when she dies, she hopes one day they'll remember her fondly._

_So she keeps wearing the suit, she flies to Afghanistan and takes out terrorist cells, does anything she can and she leaves Rhodes a letter. I'm sorry, she'll sob. I just didn't want you to see me at my weakest. You make me stronger, she'll tell him._

_"I've seen worse," he would have laughed with her._

_You need to look strong, after all, Toni would have thought, mouth tasting like coconut while she flies to save people who mean more than Toni could ever wish to._

_**~**_

She meets James Barnes in 1942, running straight into him while on leave, she went out to buy food, leaving Hogan at her flat (while Edwin visits Ana on their breaks, Harry lives with her, visiting Rachael when she's near Brooklyn).

She's filtering through all the things she knows about the war when she runs head first into a broad chest. His hands immediately come up to steady her, holding onto her upper arms.

"Fuck," she groans quietly, rubbing her nose and taking a step back.

"Are you alright?" he asks when her eyes go comically wide upon seeing his face. She swears under her breath, shaking out from his grip on her arms.

"Always," she says, instinctively. She sees this man, military uniform long gone, strapped to a table as they inject him with experimental formulas. It is clear. This man, long hair, muzzle in place swaggers towards wherever she sees this from, the vision flickers.

"I'm fine," she tells him when he's still looking at her. She knows his name is Barnes and he will be a key player, one of her undiscovered truths. And still Howard wouldn't believe her.

"I'm James but most people call me Bucky," he introduces.

"Toni," she replies, she holds out her hand as he eyes her wearily. James takes in the long coat over fitted trousers, messy hair tied up, unkempt. She knows she doesn't look like most women, not women people look for anyway.

"Unusual," he smiles after a moment, shaking her hand.

"And Bucky isn't?" she laughs, "not that I'm ever going to call you that," she adds.

"Why not?" he asks, shaking his head as she laughs.

"I'm sorry," she drawls, "what does it mean?"

"A friend got it from 'Buchanan', middle name," he smiles down at her.

"Well James, I should be leaving," she says and starts walking, throwing a mock salute towards him.

"I'd like to see you again," he calls after her. She knows they will, she carries on walking.

It's four days later and Toni's spent most of it awake, building a robot. She needs a smaller screwdriver so she goes to buy one. An hour later and she's screaming at the man at the desk. Harry was on a date and Edwin was sleeping.

"What do you need it for little lady?" the man drawls.

"It's none of your business, who cares anyway, sell me the damn screwdriver!" she yells, lunging for the tool across the till, the man steps back with it in his grasp.

"Well a lady such as yourself shouldn't be doing manual labor, do you even know how to use it?" he laughs. Toni, while the bags under her eyes are darker than usual, she did her hair neatly and wore a dress to go outside today, she's looking a little more 1940's than usual.

"For all you know I could be fetching it for my husband," she growls, "I've shown you the money for it, just sell me it,"

"What's the problem here?" another voice asks. Toni spins around to look at the newcomer, and it's Bucky. She turns back around to the shop assistant, who has shifted to face the newcomer. Toni lunges and snatches the screwdriver out of the mans hand as he's distracted. She slams the notes onto the table and dashes out of the shop, James follows her.

"What was that?" he asks her when she turns to face him.

"The prick wouldn't sell me a screwdriver," she shrugs.

"So, we meet again?" he asks.

"I know," she nods.

"Could I take you out?"  he asks and Toni liking the straight forward nature agrees. They go for coffee the next day.

"Nice place," Toni comments as they walk in.

"You've never come here?" he asks, surprise evident.

"I love coffee, live off the stuff I can get but while my apartment's here, I'm not around much," she tells him.

"You travel?" 

"Yeah, my friends work with me and we usually have leave at the same time so we share this tiny (even if it's two bedroom) apartment," she confirmed.

"I live with my buddy, he's tiny. Would love to fight but can't," he nods, solemn.

"He tiny? Ill?" She guessed.

"Yeah, little punk gets into fights anyway," and as much as Toni wants to say that's ridiculous, it's what she did. Only she was able bodied, and the guy she sees clearly isn't.

"He win any of these fights?" she asks, something flickers in the back of her mind. It's strong, unmovable, whatever's coming.

"Not until I step in," he smiles. It's a nice smile, Toni notes.

"The knight in shining armor," Toni sips her drink, rolling her eyes.

"I dunno how you can drink the stuff like that," he cringes, his coffee filled with milk while hers is black and sugarless.

"Yes this stuff could do with being less bitter but it's coffee! You don't mess with the drink of gods!" she laughs.

Two days later they go for lunch, meaning James packed a picnic and Toni was actively on time.

"So, what do you do?" he asks.

"I work for the government," she nods.

"Really?" he sounds surprised.

"Nobody took me seriously until I took down three guys your size in a fight," she laughs, "I beat them down with my words and punches until they couldn't object,"

"Sounds fun," he laughs.

"What about you?"

"I work in an auto-shop,"

"I always wanted to be a mechanic, I'm good at that stuff too, but my family told me it wasn't good for a woman but their wishes died when I left," she tells him, he looks almost sad, "Obviously," she adds.

"What now?" He asks.

"Have you ever been in a second date?" She tests.

"Not particularly, have you?" He murmurs.

"I was, technically, married," she tells him.

"Was?" He queries.

"He was a major dick, it was only because my parents thought I needed to be a housewife. He didn't like me and I didn't like him," she crackles.

"Well I like you plenty," he chuckles as he kissed her.

They spend the next couple of days hanging out, Toni enjoys James's company, she has no reason not to, he was nothing like Obadiah. And though he's clearly dated other women, has the air is a kind of ladies man but he hasn't made a move so she supposes he feels the same.

She keeps in touch as much as she can when she moves as much as she does, she writes to him and he writes to where ever she tells him to. She tells him as much as she can, being vague about her job and she tells him about Edwin and Harry happily. She gets information about sisters and a 'Steve', what fights James is pulling him out of etc.

He has to verify that she's okay with him courting her and she laughs herself stupid reading his neck scratching doubt, then lets Harry do the same.

"You're nothing like I've ever seen," he tells her.

The next few days she's in Brooklyn she ditches Harry to go out with James.

"What do you want out of this?" she asks him, he seems like the kind of guy who's 'dated' women but she hopes she's different. She could do with something like this after Obadiah.

"I just wanna be with ya," he tells her.

"Alright Brooklyn," she laughs.

She flirts and she rants and she tells him about mechanics and he seems genuinely interested. She very carefully never tells him that she already knows many of the stories he tells her. Luckily, she's only seen larger events, she wouldn't be able to stop herself adding details to the small, funny stories he tells.

She thrashes him on a darts game when an arcade thing comes through and she just about dies laughing at his shocked face.

"Don't worry, babe, you were great for a beginner," she pecks him on the cheek and accepts the large stuffed toy from the game man.

He grumbles about cheating and masculinity for a while until Toni gives him enough kisses and agrees to get a picture taken for when she's away.

"You'll make a better sniper," she tells him accidentally.

"Will?" he asks.

"Would," she corrects quickly.

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

It's 1943 and she's on leave because (they're forcing her), she's sprained her ankle and they have no spare missions anyway. Harry doesn't come with her, his time off already full, he proposed two months ago. She hides away in her tiny apartment (that she pays for herself, she hasn't spoken to anyone she knew in two years since she left), fixing broken things for her neighbors, upgrading and cleaning her car and working on designs for an energy source. She also buys some newspapers and asks around for news on Stark industries, the Stark Expo will be in Brooklyn at a science fair while she's here.

The wires she has are too big for the circuits she needs, she works on that too.

Five days into her two week leave period she decides food is a thing that regular humans need. Regular humans, she's sure there will be less of them and maybe she isn't even one.

Unwilling to change just for picking up her rations, she puts a long navy coat on over the shirt she ripped the arms off of and leaves. Walking back with her scraps of food, she thinks on how different Howard must be living.

She meets up with James after.

"Hey, Ducky," 

"I was drafted," he croaks in greeting, Toni gasps.

"No," she shakes her head.

"I ship out in a week," he laughs bitterly he wants a distraction, she tells him all about the robot she wants to build. Hours are wasted but eventually it circles back to the dreaded subject.

"I've already been over seas, it's not that bad. I know it's not what you want, but you will come back to me," she pleads, she doesn't know, what she knows is failing her, "I could bring you with me?" she ask.

"I'm in the 107th, i didn't want to go to war but this is the best option, little Stevie, it's what he wanted," he shakes his head.

Toni brings him back to her flat and they sit on her bed and they try to distract themselves. It's messy and technically in their society forbidden but Toni reasons they've both has sex before.

Toni smiles afterwards and drags her hands down James's arm.

"You didn't tell me," she whispers.

"I wanted to tell you while you're in front of me," he drawls, Brooklyn accent coming out to skewer the words.

"I'm leaving the day after the science fair, me and my buddy're going, I'd love it if you came with us," James tells her and she agrees because he's smiling and it just wouldn't do if she made him frown. As long as she stays away from Stark Industries, she'll be fine.

"The one you've never let me meet?" She mock gasps the friend reaks of danger. She's never pushed the issue of meeting him.

"I wanted to keep you separate, he doesn't even think you're real, the girl Bucky's sweet on? No way," he laughs.

She spends the three days after he asks building the bot, he's a simple design, larger bottom half, arm with a usable claw and no camera for sight yet. He'll have a microphone so she can talk to him and as much maneuverability as she can get. He's large and bulky by the time she's done but she just doesn't have advanced enough tech to make him smaller, he's about as tall as she is in his natural position, arm outwards, not upwards. She resolves to update him as time goes on to make him stronger and sleeker. Her first baby.

It's almost done by the fair and Toni has two days after to finish him. She debates whether to bring him to headquarters or not, wherever she'll be there's a lab so he can stay there while she codes for him, but at the same time she doesn't want him damaged. She's too close to leave him for her next off period so she'll drag him to wherever she's training. he'll be too clumsy without sight and sensors to be left alone.

She meets Bucky's friend's date outside the venue and they wait together. Toni recognizes James's friend instantly. The visions flick behind her eyes as she introduces herself.

"Jamie!" She yells in greeting, her man looking dashing in his uniform.

"So the dame Bucky's sweet on is real," his friend says, holding out a hand to shake, he then shakes his date's hand. 

"I showed you the picture," Bucky grins while Toni wraps her arms around James's neck and kisses him while the others talk.

"I'm Toni Carbonell," she tells the blonde. Fear grips her as she waits for an answer and the universe doesn't pull through for her.

"Steve Rogers," he nods.

"Tony your real name?" He asks.

"Short for Antonia," she laughs, brittle but convincing.

"Never told me that," Bucky grumbles.

They walk around the booths, Toni holds James's hand like a lifeline. She explains everything she can about everything she sees, a long load of science jumbo that the others don't understand but Bucky is smiling so she doesn't care. When the other girl squeals she goes stiff.

"It's starting," she says and they walk forward, Steve slightly behind them, Toni edges closer to James.

Howard presents a flying car and a girl who looks just like Harry's fiance is on stage too.

Toni should have disguised herself or something, they're too close, if Howard looks he'll see and it seems her heart's beating too fast.

Her hair is up, many pins keeping it tight against her skull, she's wearing a dress but it's black and red, no different from what she usually prefers.

She looks back to check on Steve and sees him looking at an army poster. He'll get in this time, she knows, she can see it. There's a noble man with a foreign accent and glasses, he knows his kind and Steve's just what he's looking for. The stamp he's waiting for, he will be given.

"Go," she mouths at him when he looks back to them, she nods her head towards the exit as the car crashes onto the floor.

She turns back to see Howard grinning sheepishly and scanning the crowd, she tips her head down, then up towards James.

She grins at him and kisses his cheek, the girl next to her is waving and Toni freezes.

She turns towards the stage and Howard is staring at her.

"We've got to go," she tugs at James's sleeve, he's noticed Steve is missing. She turns away quickly.

"Antonia!" Howard shouts as she drags Bucky behind her.

"Steve must have gone to enlist again," he shakes him head.

"I'll meet you outside," she tells him, "go after him, he needs your support, don't worry," she kisses his cheek again and takes off in a sprint cursing her heels, wedges are fine, this flimsy things are not.

There are steps heard behind her and she gets out of the venue and turns into a small alley.

"Antonia," Howard pants, heavier than Toni is.

"Howard," she growls.

"You've been here, in Brooklyn all along?" He asks, sounding hurt.

"No, just my apartment is here," she tells him.

"I've tried to find you," he says.

"I told you where I was going," 

"To fight, but where let you?" he puzzles.

"Excuse you, you make weapons for them," she hisses.

"The army?" 

"A division of it,"

"Antonia, I never wanted that Obadiah business to come between us," he pleads.

"Fist of all, it's Toni. And second, yeah so what if you thought he was a nice guy and Mom was all  'get married and be looked after, you'll never have to lift a finger sweetheart' but I'm not going to be some kind of passive housewife, asshole! You know me. When was that going to happen?" She's mad now.

"Fine, Toni-" 

"I'm on a date, Howard and my boyfriend is about to leave for the war, I'll be seeing you. I know it's the end of running and I know you don't believe me but I don't care. I've got to go, you'll see me when the procedure happens," she leaves him stunned and finds Bucky easily, the other girl long gone.

"Double date over?" She laughs, hooking her arm in his.

Three days later she's back at work, Happy pulling along the trailer holding the bot. 

"Shit, this thing's heavy," he pants.

"I know," she laughs, "man up, dude,"

_The story goes like this, it's warm wherever Toni is, uncomfortably so, she wears a black tank top while a man with a beard who she trusts sits across a dim room. Toni knows this to be a cave, somewhere Rhodey will never find her and she knows she needs to get out. Sure, she might have given up without a few choice words from the man, Yinsen, but she knows what she's doing now._

_Who knows what these people have done with her weapons (she will when she gets back and she will be horrified) but she won't let it continue. Toni builds and melds and hammers and finally she sets a face down in from of the man. The mouth set in a grim line, eyes hard, she will put of the face and her mind yells something about Iron._

_The man is startled but happy, something like guilt swirls at the back of his mind as he knows the trauma he will add to the woman in front of him._

_"This was always the plan," he would have said._

There are recruits for the SSR and she sits in a car with her jokingly called 'ducklings' as Peggy introduces herself. They're training and looking for a subject for project rebirth.

"What's with the accent, Queen Victoria?" One of the men mocks.

"Boo!" Toni shouts, it doesn't quite carry across the field, Jarvis punches her. Peggy punches the guy, Toni walks over.

"C'mon, Agent Carter, where's the witty comment?" She laughs, smirking at the man on the floor.

Colonel Phillips gets the men to ship up quickly and the training begins thoroughly. These men, marked 1A should be able to withstand it. Rogers looks at her and she waves slightly.

While the men run, Toni, Jarvis and Hogan run with them, Peggy is in a car up front. Toni makes sure they run just in front of Steve.

"Why are we running?" Harry asks.

"I clearly am slipping, I couldn't even outrun my brother," she tells him and speeds up.

They stop and Toni laughs at the men scrabbling to get the flag, the pole is too slim and smooth to climb, she tells her friends.

Steve uses his head and pulls down the pole. Toni bursts out laughing at the soldier's stunned faces and slaps him on the back as he climbs in the car.

"He's the right choice," she forces herself to tell Doctor Erskine as he discusses it with Colonel Phillips.

"You don't win wars with niceness," the colonel persists. He throws a grenade and Steve is the one who covers it, who doesn't look away.

"He's still skinny," the man grumbles and leaves.

"Doctor," she states.

"Agent Carbonell," he greets.

"He's the right choice," she states, "nobody believes me but I know things. I don't mind the guy, he's a little stubborn but he's a good guy," 

"What do you know?" He asks.

"He will be the only super soldier made by your hand. And I'm sorry if this offends you, but I will do everything in my power so that he is the only one anyone makes," she announced.

She speaks to Steve before Doctor Erskine does.

"I'm sure you have questions," she chirps.

"Sure, my buddy's dame is an army agent who I haven't got to talk to since I got here," he shrugs.

"He knows, if it's any consolation, I told him I work for the government, that I fight," 

"No wonder he likes you," Steve laughs.

"Look, the road will be long and our stories are close. I'm sorry but I won't tell you anything. Just that, I'll help you, if only for Bucky and tomorrow, you'll do good," she declares and leaves, passing the doctor outside.

"What do you think will happen tomorrow?" She asks Peggy.

"I think he'll pull through," 

"Good," Toni heaves. 

"Procedure's tomorrow," Harry states, walking into the room, "Howard's gonna be there," 

"Why is Howard a problem?" The other female asks.

"I haven't properly been in his presence is about four years," Toni sighs and adds "he's my brother"

"You're a Stark?" 

"Yeah, either way it was fixed. I would have loved to be a Carbonell so I chose this name like I wouldn't have been able to," she huffed.

"What does that even mean?" Peggy questions.

"Ma'am uses similar ways of speaking quite regularly," Edwin explains, Toni's off sorting through visions of the future. 

There lots of Steve, there's a train, lots of running, the ocean, James. Toni marches through it all. There's nothing past that, confusion descends like smog on the city.

"I'll follow you," she shrugs at the blonde man. Peggy looks at him like she does James.

 There's a team and there's Howard, he's still a civilian. And Toni's feeling lost, there's more, something she can't reach. That night she dreams.

_The story goes like this, there are bleeding nail marks on her arms and Obadiah is so much taller here, but she knows it's just because she's young. There's nobody around for her graduation, just Rhodey (she'll keep saying her mother loved her)._

 

_She sinks down a wall, alcohol burning in her throat, the things are bleeding, broken pieces of glass beneath her and she cries. Pepper's there when she wakes up but leaves quickly. There is no Happy to be seen and she hasn't seen Rhodey in months._

_Dummy and You help her bandage her forearm, the burn making her bite her lip to hold in the groans of pain._

_There's water in her lungs and sparks sending agonizing shock waves on pain down her back. There's a pain in her chest and she wouldn't be able to breath fully even without the water clogging her lungs._

_She collapses in the sand, a burning pile of metal as she wraps her jacket around her head and keeps going._

_Rhodey tells her to get her mind straight, he doesn't see her any more, maybe she's just changed. All she wants is support, for God's sake he saw her broken in the desert._

_He then finds her broken in the workshop, there's poison burning through her chest but that's not what's killing her this time. She gets up._

_"There's no way of of this one, J," she realizes._

She wakes to Jarvis telling her it's time to go. She nods as best she can.

Wearing the uniform she has specially, fitted, movable trousers instead of a skirt she leads Jarvis and Hogan to her car.

They're doing final set ups at the lab, Howard is surprised by her appearance.

"I told you I'd be here," she tells him, stealing a pair of sunglasses and putting on a lab coat. She leaves the other two to their own devices.

"It'll go fine," she tells the doctor.

"You look good in green," Howard comments, trying for small talk.

"Dunno, I think red always was my colour," she tells him, nudging his shoulder.

"Why weren't you here in the beginning?" He asks.

"I'm as smart as you but I wanted to fight," she drawls, "I'm here now," 

Steve arrives and Doctor Erskine explains the treatment. He looks over at Toni as he injects Steve with penicillin, she nods and he attaches the machine. people her trust her, she's not a superior but she's smart and she works. She pulls her sunglasses onto her face from her hair. Steve screams and Toni keeps her hands on the dial, even as Howard goes to shut it down.

"Steven!" The doctor screams at the machine.

"I can do this!" Steve shouts from within. The electricity flickers, cracks and dies as the machine reaches 100%. Steve stumbles out panting and sweating. A gunshot rings in Toni's head just before on rings out true. A Hydra agent. Doctor Erskine dies and Steve captures the one agent that escapes, Toni stands by Howard, Edwin and Harry and the check on all those in the facility, Peggy goes after the Hydra agent with Steve.

The next day Steve's in the newspaper, car door as a shield and all Toni can think is that it's the wrong shape.

"We are taking the fight to Hydra. Pack your bags Agent Carter, get your brood, Agent Carbonell," Colonel Phillips tells them. The SSR is being reassigned, Toni's happy, Steve is not. They won't let him help, he goes to sell war bonds.

Toni sees the dance and loves it. She learns and teaches her partners.

For months Toni fights around whistling 'The Star Spangled Man with a Plan" and waving her hips to Peggy. They find a few bases and the take legions to them and blow as much as they can to bits. Toni sees Howard as she sits in the labs and programs her bot.

"What's that?" He asks her, Harry laughs in the background.

"This will be my first baby," she tells him.

"What?"

"The first functional AI is in progress now," she declares. 

"Couldn't I help?" He offers.

"You couldn't program your way out of a plastic bag," she laughs. Harry makes Edwin high five him as Toni laughs over her keyboard, she high fives both of them.

Howard manages to get some Vibranium, he wants to make a shield.

"What shape would be most effective?" He asks her, tapping her shoulder.

"Make it round," she says as she walks past him.

They want check ups on some of the most successful legions they have.

"You stay here, I'll go to England, they're stationing me with the 107th anyway and I'll be able to see James," Toni tells Peggy, who agrees easily. Technically Toni's only visiting the commanding officers to get first hand information but she's sure she'll have time to see James.

"There's a chick here," someone gasps as Toni walks around the camp.

"James," she greets, smiling as she taps on the soldier's shoulder.

"Toni!" he yells and sweeps her into a hug, "What are you doing here?" he asks.

"I'm here to speak to your commander officially, but I wanted to see you," she tells him. He nods and she kisses him.

"I have to tell you something," she mumbles against his chest, "I just wanted to say that I'm sorry I can't stop your pain,"

A month later and Toni, Peggy and Colonel Phillips happen to be in the same place as Captain America in London. His song doesn't go over well with the rest of the 107th. Toni's screaming as there's no plan to save them. Seeing Steve doing it is about a fuzzy as anything can be and she can't stand it..

"Talk to him," she tells Peggy and she retreats back to the lab with her friends.

She goes to Phillips. 

"What if I promised you I could do it?"

"Still absolutely not, you're never injured and you're uncannily cleaver but Carbonell, I can't authorize this," He shakes his head as she pleads with him. 

"I'll make you a deal," and she knows she's a business woman, all the snark and arrogance come from what she knows, "I'll do this anyway, you just have to do your best to lower the punishment," and he shakes her hand firmly.

Peggy comes to them later asking for Howard's help. He's really trying to make it up to her now.

He flies them to Austria, Steve argues Toni shouldn't come with him. Likes to believe he's all futuristic and ahead but he still sees her as weak and should stay at home.

"If you think that's going to happen your wrong," she grinds out, Turing around "suited up sweetie? E?" They both nod. Toni designed stronger uniforms, just a shirt and trousers, they already have strong shoes. The suits have padding and stronger material, they all have leather jackets (even Steve though his costume is lacking). They all strap on parachutes. Toni has as many guns on her as possible so she can give them to the soldiers.

"So I understand why you're coming, but why them?" The captain asks, irritable. Knowing it's only him partly wanting to be a hero and largely reservations about collateral she leaves him be.

"We stay with Agent Carbonell," Jarvis reasoned. Their plane is attacked and Toni has to rush to jump after Steve.

"Well that was a stupid idea," she states when they land.

Getting into the POW camp is easy, there's surprisingly few soldiers there, they separate to open all the cages. The place is dark, few dim lights around and the soldiers are in groups in round cages, Steve starts access from the top, Toni and her partners come round the sides, they make sure to keep their eyes and ears open but as they free more soldiers there seems to be even less people, it seems they're evacuating. Toni knows the place will blow and she gasps.

Someone says that Barnes was taken and hasn't returned, Toni runs to Steve before he leaves.

"Find Barnes but be quick, something's gonna happen, you hear?" Toni gasps.

"Sure," he nods, he doesn't take it seriously. He moves on.

"I'm not kidding! Do not stop, be fast! Fast is the imperative!" She shouts after him, Jarvis and Hogan are pulling the POW's together to get out of there.

"Lets go!" Toni marches to the front, "this way," Jarvis and Hogan right on her heels.

"We followin' a dame?" Someone asks.

"No you're following Agent Carbonell and I happen to know where the exit is," she sneers and keeps walking. She hands guns to some of the people behind her.

"If it isn't one of us, shoot it," she tells them.

Gabe Jones can speak German and Toni loves it, wow someone else who can speak another language, he directs Falsworth into working a tank out of the place and while it's great for getting them out, the damage to the base with Bucky still inside makes her gut churn.

They get out by running past and shooting as many people as possible. Dernier grabs one of Hydra's guns, big and giving out blue blasts. Toni manages to grab two to bring home for the lab. They create explosions. She pushes a random soldier away from a bullet that would have killed him and he looks so ridiculously surprised Toni has to really concentrate on not laughing.

Toni stops just outside the barrier of the camp, in the trees and they settle in to wait for Captain America. The rescued soldiers clap the agents on the back and smile.

It doesn't take long for the duo to turn up, James looks pained but he's smiling. Toni doesn't stop herself from throwing herself at him when he gets close enough. He stumbles but laughs. She wraps her arms around his neck as he holds her waist.

"Hey-" he starts and she promptly attaches her mouth to him. She hums and continues to kiss him as the noise around them amplifies.

"Captain America!" Is shouted but Toni doesn't open her eyes.

"Toni," Harry taps on her shoulder. She pulls away from James, narrowing her eyes in splits. Steve coughs.

"Yes?" She sings.

"The communicator Peggy gave me broke," he shows her the blown up device. She hasn't stepped out from James's embrace and he had tucked his head into her hair. Toni made grabby hands at the device and it was handed over. She looks at it.

"I can't fix it," she tells him.

"So we're walking," he states.

"We can hitch rides from passers by, when we find a working phone, I can call Howard," she tells him.

"Hey, Sweetie," she turns her attention back to James. 

They sick to the outskirts of any city they pass for twelve days walking until they find someone that'll let them use their phone.

"Howard," Toni sighs as the man picks up.

"Toni!" Is shouted, she holds the phone from her ear.

"We're good, we've got almost 400 soldiers with us, we could use a ride," she states. She gives rough coordinates and Howard states he'll get transportation.

It takes another week to get back to the camp in London.

They stop outside of the camp to Colonel Phillips's scowling face and Peggy and Howard grinning. She hugs them both then steps in front of the colonel. 

Toni, Edwin and Harry are almost court marshaled and fuck, that's painful. She argues her way out of it and eventually her lab access is suspended and they're all put on janitor duty.

He reassigns them, making them a special operative group. Steve pulls in the best men, those he likes and those Bucky recommends and makes the Howling Commandos. He asks Toni and her partners to be part of it. Part one she thinks.

 "Sure," she shrugs.

"We'll sure follow you," Harry laughs sitting at the table with the others, Jarvis next to him, "but we answer to her," he points at Toni over the bar, drinking with James. 

"Indeed," Jarvis agrees. 

"Okay," Steve says, pouting, the others laugh at him getting undermined and Toni thinks that's where the dislike for her sparked.

 

 

"She's tiny," Dugan tells Steve, Toni's standing right there and bursts into maniacal giggles. The group looks at her like she's crazy.

"Good at my job though," she tells him. She's great with guns but the need to slow to fire one irritates her, one day she won't need to. 

Peggy will oversee them on their missions and help out. Howard will give them weapons, suits. Toni helps, she puts in as much input as she can for making suits shield more, more flexible, for making guns stronger. They spend days hovering over the Hydra weapons.

"It's got some kind of super battery and that's what's giving it these charges," she curses. Toni starts working on tasers rather than guns.

Toni doesn't pull the woman away from Steve before Peggy can see, she glares at the man's stuttering face after the confrontation. Steve picks the Vibranium shield, just like she knew he would.

Barnes is an excellent sniper, taking out long range targets and anything too close for comfort.

They raid and destroy Hydra bases, leaving the army to fight the regular Nazis. Toni sees Steve try to keep her away from the fighting but she continues. In one base she brings down the last three guys herself, punching one in the stomach, she kicks another in the head and he goes down, she lands, tasers the first guy and jumps on his shoulders, throwing her legs around the last's head spinning and bringing him crushing to the ground.

She lands, one knee and one hand on the floor and grins at Harry looking down at her. She remembers learning it, another time maybe? Definitely not solid here.

Someone wolf-whistles in the background and Toni grins.

Later, back at a base Toni places herself in Harry's lap, knees by each of his hips and tries to beg out his coffee rations.

"Sweetie, Muffin, Pookie, why noot," she whines. He laughs.

"You drink too much of the stuff, you should try sleep," he puts his hands on her waist and she struggles against his stronger grip as she knows what he's doing. When he tickles her she shrieks, bringing attention from the other commandos.

"Stop!" she laughs, leaning backwards. She ends up pulling them both off the tiny wooden chair and landing on her back on the hard floor. Harry flops next to her and she vows revenge.

"Help me up, E. Look at the savage that attacked me," she laughs as Edwin pulls her off the floor.

"Actions like that are unacceptable for taken women," Steve tells her after she's got up.

"What?" she asks, hoping she's hearing wrong.

"You're with Bucky, you should be more loyal," he sniffs, "not fooling around with another fella,"

"Excuse me," she exclaimed "I think if Bucky" she insists "had a problem with me being close to my friends, he would have said something when I told him I live with him," The first battle Captain America loses.

Toni and Steve don't get along too well but they work together fine, even if Steve hates it when she doesn't follow orders.

The first mission with Steve's only weapon being his shield, he throws it at a soldier only to miss and it go flying out a window. Toni breaks down laughing, clutching her stomach and Harry and to stand directly in front of her to shoot anyone getting close.

Toni gets it together quickly but she's still giggling, tears in her eyes when they collect the shield later.

The Merchant of Death swirls behind her eyes and all she can see is the gun she holds. She mutters throughout the debrief, Jones on one of her sides and Hogan on the other.

"Fucking Merchant of Death," she growls in German, "what the fuck was I supposed to be," she whispers in Dari, dragging a hand down her face. 

"I know things, but there's always more and what am I doing with it, keeping to myself in case the alternative is worse. I've never even tried to stop something solid," in Italian under her breath, she holds onto Harry's hand and ignores the strange looks she gets from her team, Steve looks especially sour.

"How do I even know I couldn't do anything?" she asks Harry later. She's sitting in James's lap in the lab, Harry opposite them, James makes it very clear he has no idea what they're saying, reading to give an air of privacy.

"I don't know but from what I've seen you could see the logic of how it could have been besides there's sometimes an alternative, right?" she shakes her head, not wanting to talk about it. Stronger, she keeps her worries to herself.

Once she ends up disobeying a direct order to stay where she is under bullet fire and gets to the middle of the fight with Steve just in time to pull the shield off the momentum Steve was swinging it in to hold it to the right of them when a bomb bounces off of it. Steve wouldn't have done it in time. She smirks at his shocked expression. He wouldn't have died  but she wanted to prove him wrong.

"I knew it was coming," she tells him later.

"Obey orders next time, I would have been fine," Toni only snorts her doubt when he walks away.

"You're not above me in the chain of command, don't try that," And Toni and Steve bicker regularly but they can get along, when they're both willing. She just only does for James' benefit.

Sound but irregular sleep is what Toni deals with. Until she doesn't.

 

 

_There's something wrong with her head and in the other story she shouldn't be able to see things (she doesn't know what this is). Toni's in space and the portal is massive. Leviathans fly overhead and the team is dead, on the floor. Staggers forward to check Cap's pulse, he blames her._

_This is the answer she thinks at Bruce, while he looks doubtful, can't say no to this big of a scientific revelation. Later, as Toni and Thor blow a floating city to pieces, Toni thinks of the girl who blames her for everything that's wrong with the world and yet again Toni doesn't know how to act._

_'I didn't want to be here anyway!' she wants to scream, they're the ones that made the mess that dragged Toni back. What was supposed to be the solution again failed. Except this time, it cost more than just Toni's sanity and strength. She can tell the team's disappointed so she fixes the situation again and leaves them in the capable hands of Rhodey._

_She doesn't get rid of the suits, she knows she should but she doesn't_ want _to. They make her look stronger than ever._

Toni screams and startles awake, the door bangs open as she puts a hand over her heart and tries to control her breathing.

"You okay, Doll?" Bucky asks, marching in the room and sitting next to her, she melts into his arms.

"Yeah, just seen some things," she mumbles, looking up as Harry and Jarvis walk into the room.

 "What was it about?" He asks, she meets eyes with Harry.

"Another one?" he asks, sounding sad.

"Yeah," she croaks, "you need to look strong" She mumbles, reaching for her friend as James loosens his grip. She rests her head by Harry's his ear when she hugs her friend.

"It was more of what would have been. There was a portal and beyond-" She whispers.

"I know, Toni," he huffed and she sat back down.

"Somethings going to happen," she tells Harry the next day, straight across the table, uncaring of what people here. A cold feeling of dread had settled down in her stomach.

"Bad?" He asks.

"Surely painful," she confirmed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave all the comments and kudos you can! Is this better, I think it went more places than the last?  
> \- thebeeswithoutwarning.tumblr.com


	3. Chapter 3

The next operation is on a train and Toni knows this one. Knows it intimately.

"Okay boys," she pulls her partners to the side.

"This will be an easy success but there's something I can't let happen. You stick to Steve like glue and I'll do the same with James, capishe?" They nod.

"Don't stray far from me," she whispers to James as they travel, his arm around her shoulders.

"Okay," he conceded, he doesn't argue with her orders.

Five of them land on the train and run through. Steve and Edwin get separated by a door shutting. Toni and Bucky pull out guns and shoot at the people entering the cart, Harry crouches behind some boxes to try to open the door. Steve and Jarvis hide behind the shield while a guy fires some of those energy blasts.

Toni activates the taser and gets one of the guys although she's exposed from hiding behind the boxes, James hooks an arm around her waist and pulls her down, the taser disconnects as it isn't long enough, they guy was already down. James manages to hit the other.  
Steve opens the door and Toni knows.

"He isn't down!" She shouts and Steve turns in time to shield Jarvis from the blast.

A hole is blown in the side, Toni stands up as Bucky grabs the shield. She grabs hold of the him with one hand and shoots with the other, James shoots too. The next blast hits the shield and they fly backwards, James drops the shield, Jarvis from behind them grabs Bucky's uniform before they get too far out. Toni grabs the railing along the side of the train, she's further out so James is pulled in first. She breathes a sigh of relief as her feet touch the floor and she heards the others further away from the hole in the train.  
She plants a kiss right on Jarvis's mouth and tells him thanks, James laughs as J splutters then kisses Toni's cheek himself.

Armin Zola is captured.

They know the headquarters, they design a battle plan. Toni spends her days laughing.

She knows something's wrong as soon as they get into the base, cap got on a motorbike and stormed the front, the rest followed, even Peggy came in with them. Toni's mind expanded.

Jarvis and Hogan stay close to Toni, they methodically take out Hydra soldiers on one side of the base, far from where Toni knows Steve and Bucky. Toni's raiding through a lab they've found while the other two guard the door. She's relaying what she's finding to Howard over a radio.

"There's more of these weird weapons," she tells him, "no sign of a battery,"

She feels a stab of pain in her head and collapses. She sees the ocean, not from her point of view, Steve is in front of him, sitting in a pilot's chair, he's taking. There's a feeling of dread, she feels sad but resigned, the water touches her face and-.

"They're not coming back from this one," she says, shaking.

"Carbonell," Howard voice comes from the radio.

"I told you I know things," she stands up, there's no way to stop it. Howard tells her he believes her and that's when she realizes they've actually grown close. it would almost make her happy if not for what's happening somewhere over the ocean as she thinks about it.

Later, she sits while Peggy tells her James wanted her to know he was sorry.

"They'll be back," she tells Howard, Jarvis, Harry, the commandos.

"Not soon, but they will be," she continues, them proceeds to spend two days drunk in the lab trying to code for her bot until she passes out.

She wakes to flaring vision of coded commands and she finishes the robot. Smiling widely when it twitches it's arm.

"Hey, buddy. You awake?" she tries, it squeaks and moves it's arm, knocking something off the desk behind Toni.

Dum-Dum is elected the new leader as Steve isn't around and Toni didn't want the position and the team become part of the Seventh Army for Operation Undertone, Toni takes great joy in hitting people for a while. The war is won quickly and by the end Toni is feeling hollow without a purpose. They take down the last Hydra base in Austria and Toni decides to rest.

She skips out on all ceremonies and hides in her tiny apartment for a few months. She is honored as a hero and involved in the Captain America story, Edwin and Harry behind her.

~

Toni is the best man at Harry's wedding a year after the war ended. It took a lot for Toni to pull herself together enough to function, spending most of her time in a lab at SI after Howard made her the head of R&D, stating she'll also take over the company. The press went wild but Toni trod on all their feet and punched Obadiah out of the picture. Her name is officially Carbonell by Howard's hand and she thanks him.

Toni spent the time after James's disappearance hiding from her knowledge (because she didn't want to be part of the Manhattan project) because it pained her that when she wanted information the most, she couldn't have it.

After the war, the director of the SSR Chester Phillips tells them they need to reformat the SSR. Toni, Howard and Peggy along with the other Commandos help him change it into SHIELD. They wanted to make it more permanent than the agency that sprung up for WW2. They recruit as many people as they can, not including Harry or Jarvis. They want to recruit Zola, Toni tells them no.

"He worked for Hydra," she argues, "he'll do terrible things," she tries, she wins. After the initial set up, Toni leaves it to Howard and

Peggy, just using her expertise to make sure she has top level security clearance and the servers for digital information are top standard.

Jarvis becomes Howard's butler (moving into the mansion with Ana), Harry opens a new boxing center with Toni's help and Toni focuses on SI as much as she can when she's still sent on missions every couple of weeks. The Howling Commandos continue as a specialist group for the agency and Toni keeps track as much as possible, they even recruit some new members in place of those missing.

The day is cool but the wedding's indoors. Howard paid for lots of it and Harry paid for the rest. Dummy, who hates when Toni's away, attends as well.

Toni lives in a haze of surrounding herself with machines, she updates dummy, makes a smaller wire, sends something to R&D and Peggy meets someone.

"You should move on," people tell her and she kind of knows it herself but she has her friends and she can be a bit celibate, James was the one anyway. Besides, something whispers in her head, he'll be back.

She tries to date anyway, people are nice but it seems the view on women isn't changing.

Toni keeps an eye on the operation her team have in Russia, infiltrating a new organisation even if she doesn't actively join. Peggy comes to see her after.

"Are you happy?" her friend asks her, knowing how much Toni liked the fighting.

"Almost," Toni states, she has work and Dummy and she sees her people as often as possible, she's just trying to get on with it.

On the tenth anniversary of Steve's procedure with the super soldier serum Toni gets Howard to set up a stage in central park and a camera. She drives him crazy for a month not telling him why. She hires as many of the original chorus girls as she can, she gets others to fill in and she gets a body builder friend of Harry's to play Steve and they re create the Star Spanged Man with a Plan routine.  
It's the most viewed thing on the nations terrible (primitive) television.

_Another time and Toni knows all about captain America, having walked in his non-existent shadow her whole life. She meets him standing beside a crazy alien god with antlers and she just can't keep her mouth shut. Capsicle, she taunts before running after the next one. And ooh, she loves the next one, bulky with a body that sings of electric._

_They fight an army and Toni goes through a portal. It's cold and her heart stops. She screams awake on the concrete floor, her heart aches and darkness hides behind her vision. She tries to walk it off but it lingers so she does the next best thing and tries to convince Pepper to stay. Dummy falls into the ocean and Toni strikes hesitancy off her list of emotions. Pepper isn't safe and she's crying, unsure of whether she'll be okay and Toni needs to stop._

_Damn, she tried so hard but the team needed her again. That place, dark cold and oxygen-free still haunts her and with it brings the destruction of a city and an innocent boys life. Everyone takes all she does for granted and so what if she's hated. Really, she just wants to stop._

When Toni wakes she realises they never would have had a chance. She's also kind of glad the 'would' dreams are back, she hasn't had knowledge like that in a while. She (hates) relied on them to keep her busy, always more to figure out. Besides maybe it means she's moving on from all that happened in the war.

She makes everything from cameras to water filters to batteries to whole robotic factories. When a new style of fighting turns up she learns as much as she can and she can fell all the things she would have learnt coming to her.

Obadiah is made a minor board member, with few shares in the company he tries to talk to Toni but she always blanks him, when Howard retires he will be bought out instantly.

Peggy leaves the front lines and becomes the director of SHIELD. She introduces all of her family to Toni and Toni loves it, she doesn't get particularly close with any of them but Peggy's mother was hilarious. She sees a blonde girl, number 13, standing at a podium and her head aches.

Years after SHIELD still grows and Toni gets no information she she doesn't concern herself with it, she's sure Peggy knows who to hire and which governments to operate in. She's confident there won't be an incident like The Story's Winter Soldier.

Toni laughs at Howard's dates and laughs even more when he tries bringing dates for her. She goes on a double date once with his girlfriend and who does he bring for her? Dum-Dum.

"Absolutely not," she states as soon as the guys walk into the restaurant, Howard's girlfriend looking shocked and appalled by her outburst.

"Come on, sis," Howard laughed, "I brought him to keep you entertained, you're still wearing pants anyway!" and Toni doesn't even bother arguing with Howard when he's in moods like those, she just glares at him as he smiles and drapes an arm around the back of his date's chair.

"Still miss the old man, huh?" Dum asks her and she just decides to nod.

"Nobody come close?"

"Not even nearly, I barely get out of the house but things will happen, you'll see," she tells him, deciding to confuse ans hut him up quicker sooner than later.

"That's fine. I won't tell you to get over it, I still miss everyone, even the action,"

They do another routine on the 25th anniversary of the first sighting of captain America that Toni can't perform in but she and Howard are interviewed for it afterwards. All the people are different but many are relatives or friends of the originals. This one people know about it, the place is filled with people dressed as Cap. One man completely cosplays as cap, his wife dressed as Peggy. They dressed his brood of kids as Bucky and the Howling Commandos, they're dressed as a mix of the comics and the real things as seen in newspapers. His one daughter are dressed as Toni. Toni spends the day walking around the park with Jarvis and Harry, taking pictures. She gets this family to make multiple poses for them and the trio take pictures with them.

Toni wonders how everything has stayed the same over fifteen years, Peggy has a girlfriend but Toni's still working, Howard's still drinking and everyone's still functioning, even if all the Commando's have separated. Toni gets replies to her letters semi-regularly.  
Jim Morita, Toni's favorite of the Commandos from the 107th, if only because he actually knew something about technology, dies of a stroke and even though Toni's only communication with him was a few letter per year she is devastated. She knows he's the first of many and the knowledge burns more than the fact that she won't find James.

Howard spirals down to alcoholism, still unable to find Steve with his expeditions.

_Another piece connects like this, James is found down in the ice and brought back to Hydra so Zola can complete his experiments. He screams silently after a while, just bites hard on his mouth guard. His arm has been taken and he follows the orders given. Only once in seventy years his name is spoken and it almost helps, instead they wipe him again._

_Hydra sneak into SHIELD and when something doesn't go their way (the bad guys never win) they change it. They send the Winter Soldier on assassinations world wide and eventually, he's sent to Howard Stark._

_The programming doesn't break until Project Insight when the hellicarriers fall and a man that was devoted to the soldier stands in front of him once again._

Maria Carbonell is found at some horrible high society gala, Howard runs off with her and the next thing Toni knows Howard's introducing them.

"I stole your name," she laughs.

Toni loves Maria and spends as much time with her as possible, even together they can't keep Howard in line.

Toni meets Janet Van-Dyne at another gala and loves that woman too. Toni marvels at the fact she's collecting friends. Janet's husband Hank Pym runs a company that works with Howard, he works with SHIELD too and Toni would love to get her hands on the ant man suit but she knows what that kind of power could do to life as they know it. Hank is extremely aware of the power of the Pym particle so he keeps it close to his chest and Toni knows almost all about it, really she loves her knowledge-could someone tell her what it is? But Toni keeps her mouth shut and her hands off, she stands back and knows somewhere down the line something will go horribly wrong. Toni really isn't sure about SHIELD, those Nazi scientists, the random guy who Toni's never met replacing Peggy as Director, the World Security Council.

Toni wants to rampage, rip it all out and start again but it's so deep now and it's actually important. All this time, something's been building.

In 1973 Harry has a kid.

"We never really thought of it," Rachael tells her when Toni asks them why now.

"Besides keeping you alive is enough work," Harry laughs.

Toni is there when the baby is born, standing in the corner and smiling at her friends as a tiny boy is brought into the world.

"What's his name?" Toni asks.

"We haven't decided," Rachael shrugs, "I thought it'd come to us when we needed it to,"

"How's that worked for you?" Toni laughs, looking down at the tiny boy.

"Richard?" Harry asks, Rachael shakes her head.

"Ted?" Rachael suggests, another shake.

"Jamie?"

"Andrew?" it goes on for a while, both parents and Toni are grinning the whole time.

"What about Happy?" Toni contributes, she gets confused looks.

"Who cares if it's different? He looks happy, you two are both so happy, I'm elated, name him Happy," Toni explains.

"Happy," Rachael coos.

"Okay," Harry nods. Toni is named godmother, Edwin godfather.

Toni leaves all work on weapons to Howard or the other minions, she realizes they're necessary but has learnt from her past self and won't build them herself. She makes computers, tech, robotics, cars and she loves it. She walks around in jeans and t-shirts, oil everywhere and those under her in R&D love her. She makes basic designs in her workshop and sends them over or comes down herself to build it first hand. She tweaks the first version herself always with major things and she feels good for a long time.

She has her friends who are growing old with her but they drink coffee and laugh and Toni spends as much time with Happy as she can move. The little boy loves Dummy.

"Your aunt Toni," Harry introduces her as to his son, every time.

Ana dies in 1976 and Edwin in heartbroken. They have a tiny ceremony, just family and very close friends, she stands with her hand on Jarvis's shoulder while he cried as the coffin is lowered. Toni doesn't cry herself, she's the rock her friend needs.

Fuck, they're growing old, she sighs when just a few weeks after the next of the commando's goes into an senior's hospital. She fights against it, going on walks and visiting everyone.

Happy gets old enough to question things quickly, one of their first full conversations revolves around her name.

"How come your name's a boy's name?" he asks her and she laughs.

"It's short for Antonia," she tells him.

"Why aren't you called that?" the boy sounds confused.

"I don't like it," she tells him, tapping his nose and making a 'boop' noise.

"I don't like Toni," he grumbles.

"How about this, most people would shorten my name with the first part, you you can call me Auntie Annie, deal?" she holds out her pinky finger when he gives an enthusiastic nod.

It was good until Edwin got sick. At first everyone thought it was a cold, but he just doesn't recover. he dies with frail limbs and Toni sitting next to him.

Four days after Toni's 64th birthday she collapses. It's Peggy who rushes her to the hospital after Dummy managed to phone her. She is diagnosed with late stage cancer in her brain. They predict her eight months best before she can't function normally.

Toni thinks she should be able to accept this but as she looks around at Peggy, strong but trying too hard to be, the commandos have long disappeared, Howard and his unrelenting search for Captain America and she sees that she can't leave everything as it is.

She sees that James hasn't been found yet and she has to be there for it. She's certain she's scaring her friends with how obsessed she is but it needs to happen. She makes herself presentable for the arrival of Happy to her flat but that's as far as social interaction goes.

She starts searching, alternatives of the super soldier serum, progress in healing and medicine. It takes three months of running through every SHIELD file and anything she can find with her powers until she finds Aldrich Killian who is trying to work on something he calls extremis but failing. The thing has merit, Toni knows and although she can see pain with the glowing orange vial she can breath better. She thinks of the other story and decides if Killian doesn't have it it can't happen.

She takes the money she's saved and buys the data from Killian easily.

It's four months later when the serums almost there, it'll work for a while but it tends to give out too much heat buildup and explode the carrier. Toni starts having difficulty remembering things, Edwin and Ana living in Stark mansion help her with it even if they don't understand what she's doing.

She manages to stabilize extremis in time, even if it isn't perfect, she doesn't have the resources to make it perfect. She makes an alternative, weaker version to be added after extremis which will hopefully help the cells fully acclimatize to the new information. It should stabilize the cells that have been changed by extremis. She takes the four vials she's made and she shuts herself in a medical room in SHIELD on lock down, IV for water and nutrients and a radio for any contact, she's set to be let out in three days and people are to ignore any noise.

"What are you doing, Toni?" Both Howard and Peggy ask her.

"I'm going to live," she says.

She lays on the reasonable comfy cot in the white room and she injects herself with the first vial.

It burns under her skin and she screams as her veins appear to be glowing. She screams and arches up on the cot as her clothes turn to ash. This keeps going for eighteen hours. She sags in relief as it stops being painful but her veins still don't look happy. She injects the second vial and manages to sleep after six hours of pain. She wakes to scorch marks up the wall and melted bits of the metal bed stuck to her skin. She can feel a buzzing around her, something sings under her skin and it doesn't hurt. She injects the third.  
It's less intense while Toni can focus more, she can almost feel her cells changing, she grins.

She injects the stabilizer extremis when her skin cools and attaches herself to the IV. She sleeps again.

She wakes to the radio activation. She touches it and her skin buzzes with the contact, she can feel what seems to be the burn of electricity in the walls, through the device.

"Antonia?" Howard asks though the device.

"Howard, bring me clothes please," she asks.

"Coming, do you feel well?" she moves herself, she feels better than she has in years, she takes a good look at what she can see of herself, her skin if firm, some of the bigger scars from work gone.

"Why don't you come look?" she asks.

Howard makes a large gasping noise when Toni has the standard trousers and t-shirt on.

"You look like a twenty-year-old," he gasps. They put on her file that she died of terminal cancer and decided they'll introduce her as Antonia Ellen Stark, daughter of Howard stark who named her after his beloved sister.

"Your eyes glow," Peggy tells her and Toni realizes they do. They're still an hazel-ish colour but much brighter, Toni resolves to wear shades or contact lenses when possible.

"I'll go to college," she tells him, "that way I can have the document backing my intelligence and I can take over your company easier when you retire," they all agree, they fake the schooling certificates.

_Before in the story she would have thought her plan was fixed. Weapons made from Obi's insistence while she wants to be remembered as greater than Howard. Surely she was from the start, having had the materials she certainly was faster, it was well documented too, unlike it was when Howard did great things._

_She flings herself around, whatever she does is found out which is useful for when it becomes unfixed. Every moment of her life documented and so she uses it to be not only the most rebellious but the best._

_On the television someone mentions Gulmira and Toni snaps, but she can't be known as what she is (never mind the colours of the suit, J) so she gathers the drunkest models she can find and uses them as a cover. Saving a town should be worth the painful looks Pepper gives her surely?_

She takes a year to get fitter and it's great, feeling young so she amps up her exercise routine to more than what it was before she joined the SSR. She practices martial arts with actual trainers and gymnastics at a local center and she feels amazing. She tests her strength and agility, speed when she runs and none of it's quite as enormous as what Steve had, she knows extremis is different. She doesn't need any of that so it gave her something else. She can do all her own heavy lifting for projects again and she smiles until she properly thinks on how her friends, her brother are aging. She asks any of them if they'll take extremis and while she knows the answer will be no, she still pleads. She updates Dummy's coding with her powers and does an overhaul on his frame work, by the time she'd done he's as small as she is. So she starts on a second one.

"Howard you have to stop this!" Toni screams, her brother continues to work, recreating the super soldier serum. He's drunk and disorderly and it pains Toni to be around him some days.

"There will never be any more super soldiers!" she continues, "not on our side anyway!"

"How do you know?" he turns on her.

"You believed me once when I told you I knew things, please believe me now," she pleads, grabbing one of Howard's hands.

"Antonia, Steve won us the war, this serum is something we need," Howard's eyes are cold.

"No it isn't! This will bring us nothing good!" she shouts, tearing at her hair.

"You have a version in you!" he's shouting as well now.

"No, I have extremis and I created it because I was dying! I would have anyway! It was fixed, Howard. This will only get you killed and it may not be by who it would have been because he doesn't exist but it will be by the same people and those people cannot have this. Stop this madness Howard, I beg you," she turns to leave, before the tears fall.

Howard doesn't stop until Toni recounts the Winter Soldier's assassination of him and Maria, on that day to get the vials.

To keep Howard's mind away from the super soldier serum she focuses on the bright blue light that is prominent the other time, she tells him to work on energy.

"No, Howard. Bigger than batteries," she insists.

Another year of testing extremis, finding it's only compatible with some DNA. Howard would never be stable if she injected him, he'd blow as a supernova soon after she injected him. She sees Rhodey, clearer than ever and she knows he'd be perfect, far more than she is. extremis barely accepted her.

She also works on exactly what she can do with her new ability. She can connect through her head to any piece of technology, she can tell where they are, she can transfer electricity or stop it. But most interestingly, she can turn bits of her skin to metal, whatever metal she puts on herself she can merge into her skin, transform her skin and pull at it to layer it over. Finding that power was ridiculous, stumbling around after being up for 80 ish hours and falling into a metal table in her workshop and seeing the metal fold into her skin was surreal to say the least.

She can only do it with as much metal she has, she can't use a coin to her her whole had copper, (unfortunately) she grumbles. She spends lots of time at SHIELD experimenting on this.

Her only theory about these powers never showing before is that it just enhances everything it is. when she injected it in plants she did see thorns grow or branches move quicker, she guesses that in her it picked up on a metal fetish. The worst thing is that it also seemed to have vamped up the knowledge, she sees tiny things and knows things she would never know instantly about people. The visions are clearer than ever, Toni can even see background images sometimes whereas before she only really saw the focus, what was important, with just vague knowledge of everything around it. she sees almost everything again and this time it's so much easier to compartmentalize and fix all the cracks. She sees pain and suffering and she ploughs on because now. Now she has a chance to understand it.

She keeps her right forearm and hand as titanium to use as defense, she's not sure what happens to the metal under her skin she just knows it takes an incredible amount of concentration to bring it out, evenly plated against her skin. She makes a gauntlet kind of thing and practices bringing it out, it's difficult, keeping all the tiny plates in place so she can move her hand. She resolves to keep practicing. She finds the best way to allow her to actually move her hand would be to flick the pieces out like scales.

Using her techopathic abilities she amps up the SHIELD systems, making them more secure and going through many of them, catching up now that she can.

She finds things going missing or randomly wrong, misfiled reports and things haphazardly changed, she gets suspicious.

She walks into MIT with Dummy trailing behind her, holding a cart with the next bot, heels and sunglasses on and head held high in 1986.

Everyone wants something, whether it's her body (she's still not over James) or her money (not that she cares) or her intelligence (they can keep their slimy hands off her projects) and it's so tiring at first. She's literally spent over thirty years talking to her few friends, running on SHIELD missions and working for SI, she can't deal with people let alone these gold-diggers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I dedicate this chapter to yeratimelord_katniss for giving me the motivation in comment form to post this! Thank you so much!  
> I hope you enjoy all this and If anyone has any ideas for funny/ clever chapter names comment them, it would be mighty useful.  
> -fairiesteel.tumblr.com

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, remember comments and kudos give me life an motivation.  
> It's been a long time since I've posted any work but I actually have 30K of this drafted, tell me if it's worth continuing please!  
> -. thebeeswithoutwarning.tumblr.com


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